Russia Confirms Rescue of Stranded Cosmonauts With a Replacement Mission
Russia stated Wednesday that it will send an empty spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) coming month to bring home 3 astronauts whose planned return vehicle was damaged by a strike from a small meteoroid.
The Russian space company, Roscosmos, made the announcement after examining the flight-worthiness of the Soyuz MS-22 staff capsule docked with the ISS that sprang a radiator coolant leak in December.
Roscosmos and also NASA officials stated at a joint press briefing that an uncrewed Soyuz spacecraft, MS-23, would be sent to the ISS on February 20th to bring Russian cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and also Sergei Prokopyev and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio back to Earth.
“We are not calling it a rescue Soyuz,” stated Joel Montalbano, ISS program manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Facility in Houston. “I am calling it a replacement Soyuz.
“Today, the crew is risk-free onboard the spaceport station.“
MS-22 flew Petelin, Prokopyev, and Rubio to the ISS in September after removing from the Russian-operated Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
They were scheduled to return home in the identical spacecraft in March; however, their stay on the ISS will currently be extended by several extra months.
“I may need to find some more ice cream to reward them,” Montalbano joked.
MS-22 started leaking coolant on December 14– soon before Russian cosmonauts were to start a spacewalk– after being hit by what the United States and Russian space officials think was a small space rock.
Montalbano stated, “everything does point to a micrometeoroid” and not space debris or a technical issue.
The executive director of Human Space Flight Programs at Roscosmos, Sergei Krikalev, stated the “present concept is that this damages was caused by a little particle regarding one millimeter in diameter.”
MS-23 had been scheduled to fly Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and also Nikolai Chub and NASA’s Loral O’Hara to the ISS on March 16th.
SpaceX Crew Dragon
The decision was made to utilize MS-23 to fly the current staff home, Krikalev stated, because of concerns over great potential temperatures in the damaged MS-22 throughout reentry to Earth’s atmosphere.
He stated it could still potentially be used “in case of emergency.”.
Another emergency scenario involves using the SpaceX Staff Dragon capsule that is now docked with the ISS after flying 4 astronauts to the space station in October for a 6-month objective.
Montalbano stated discussions have been underway with SpaceX regarding utilizing the Staff Dragon capsule to fly home other astronauts aboard the ISS.
“We can safely protect the staff members in the region that the cargo typically returns on the Dragon,” Montalbano stated.
“All that is only for an emergency, only if we need to leave ISS,” the NASA official stressed. “That is not the nominal plan or anything like that.”.
Krikalev stated an uncrewed MS-22 would go back to Earth, possibly in March, following the arrival of the replacement automobile.
It would bring back devices and experiments that are not “temperature delicate,“ he said.
When the original MS-23 staff will get to the ISS is still being worked out, Montalbano included.
Space has remained a rare collaboration venue between Moscow and Washington since the beginning of the Russian offensive in Ukraine and also ensuing Western sanctions on Russia.
The ISS was released in 1998 at a time of increased US-Russia collaboration following the Cold War “Space Race”.
Russia has been utilizing the aging but reliable Soyuz capsules to ferry astronauts into space since the 1960s.
Read the original article on Science Alert.
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